What inspired the characters of Xue Xiao and Ma Yu in Where the River Meets the Moon?

The real-life earthquake survivors serve as the foundation for nearly every character in Where the River Meets the Moon. Each character is rooted in a real person, and many even share the same names and life trajectories as their real-life counterparts. The book exists deliberately at the intersection of fiction and non-fiction. In art and literary history, this approach is often described as parafiction—a form of storytelling that blurs historical reality with imagined reconstruction. While most of the events in the novel are drawn directly from the lived experiences of earthquake survivors, I also weave in elements from my own life, remixing our stories and intertwining seventeen years of shared growth, observation, and emotional evolution.

Although Xue Xiao, Ma Yu, and the other central characters are inspired by real survivors, each carries fragments of me—often heightened, distilled, and dramatized. Through Xue Xiao, I was able to express the wild, bold, and free-spirited version of myself. He goes to places I once dreamed of, confronts forces far larger than himself—forces that might have made me hesitate—and yet never loses his faith in people or in the world. Writing him allowed me to explore courage without compromise, hope without naïveté.

Ma Yu, on the other hand, gave me access to the quieter, more sensitive, and deeply literary dimensions of my inner life. Through her, I explored intergenerational trauma within my own family, questions of care and tenderness, and the difficult work of forgiveness. Her story is about learning how to process pain without being consumed by it—how to turn trauma into something forward-looking and life-affirming.

She is, of course, rooted in a real survivor. But she is also a tribute to the women who carry trauma and still grow beyond it. From my mother to my closest childhood friend, Ma Yu is shaped by generations of resilient women. She is a girl made of roses and thorns—walking through glass, bleeding quietly, yet always chasing a sliver of light.